Retirement

I have a question on how to change something in my life. I will need to explain the situation: My husband has been struggling with retirement. He defined himself by his job and doing that job well, and now that is gone.

For the last year he has been looking for something that he can do to define himself – particularly during the winter months when outdoor activities are more difficult. He became a “grill master”.

There is a lot of good and bad to this! The good part is that he now cooks – a lot – and enjoys it and I have a lot less to do when I come home from work! The bad thing is that we do not just “eat”. Our meals, particularly our evening meal, has become an “event” and we discuss the preparation, cooking, how the food tastes, is done, what a great job he did, etc. We have wonderful meals and I cannot discount that, but we get so focused on eating, it has become our “activity” and main topic of conversation.

I need to lose weight and focusing so much attention on cooking and eating seems to defeat the weight loss goal. I have tried to steer him to cooking healthy food and that has worked to a certain extent but we eat very well every night. I try to limit my portions, eat more of the vegetables, drink water before I eat so that I feel fuller, etc. I don’t want to crush his newfound talent but I can’t keep eating this way. Help!

You are doing the main things right! In Ephesians 5:22-33 it tells wives to respect their husbands and husbands to love their wives. Your situation portrays this beautifully, so congratulations! Concentrating on the vegetables, small portions and the water too, is very good. So keep those things up! Other things you can try;

1. Chew your food thoroughly savor the flavor of each bite. This will slow down your eating and you will eat less before you feel full. (It takes 20 minutes for our stomachs’ to tell our brains it is full, we can pack in a lot of calories in 20 minutes.)

2. Increase the amount of exercise you get. Try adding a morning or regular lunch workout to your routine.

3. Do not eat any food three hours prior to going to bed.

4. Explain to your husband how important it is to you to lose weight.

5. Ask him to plan nightly activities the two of you can do together before or after dinner. See if he can make them mostly physical activities. I suggest, cross country skiing, moon lit snow shoe walks, couples stretching. He may really enjoy this new challenge.

Remember, losing or gaining weight is mostly a math equation. Calories in- calories out=weight gain or loss. Do what you can, to adjust your day to accommodate your evening meal.

1 Corinthians9:17 “For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward; but if against my will a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me.”